SAATCHI TO LOSE $85 MILLION MORE IN J&J WORK

Accounts Include Pepcid, Mylanta and St. Joseph Aspirin

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- A week after eliminating Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, from the $100 million Tylenol review, Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Consumer and Specialty Pharmaceutical division is taking its

Pepcid, Mylanta and St. Joseph aspirin brands -- a combined $85 million in media spending -- away from the agency, executives close to the situation said.

Fractured relationship
A spokeswoman from McNeil said she "can't comment on any speculations," but one executive from the marketer cited a fractured relationship between the client and the agency and said, "Saatchi took its eye off the ball."

A Saatchi spokesman acknowledged the accounts are moving.

Saatchi had the Tylenol account for 28 years but was eliminated from the review last week when McNeil chose Interpublic Group of Cos. shops Deutsch, New York; Hill Holliday Connors Cosmopulos, Boston; and Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., for a three-way shootout.

It is not known if J&J and McNeil will put the Pepcid, Mylanta and St. Joseph brands up for review or assign them to other agencies. There is a growing sentiment among executives close to the Tylenol review that the losers of Tylenol will end up with a combination of these other brands.

J&J spent $48.6 million in measured media last year on the heartburn and acid indigestion medication Pepcid, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR. Mylanta, another heartburn medication, had $16.6 million in spending last year, and St. Joseph had $20.5 million.